Read Between the Spines

The Most Anticipated 2026 Book Releases by Black Authors

I did a few web searches and could not find a list of best 2026 books by Black authors. So I have put together a list of my own that spans 45 new and upcoming titles across both adult fiction and nonfiction.

Fiction

The Starseekers

Nicole Glover

Indiana Jones meets Hidden Figures in this brand-new stand-alone historical fantasy set in the world of The Conductors, in which the space race of the mid-20th century will be determined by magic…if not murder.

Publication date: January 6
Genre: Historical Fantasy

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Fire Sword & Sea

Vanessa Riley

The real Pirates of the Caribbean were Black, and women! From Vanessa Riley, acclaimed author of Queen of Exiles, comes a sweeping, immersive saga based on the life of the legendary seventeenth-century pirate Jacquotte Delehaye.

Publication date: January 13
Genre: Historical Fiction

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If I Ruled the World

Amy DuBois Barnett

A juicy debut novel that peeks behind the curtain at the cutthroat world of hip-hop music and the glamorous magazine scene in the late 1990s, written by the ultimate insider.

Publication date: January 27
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

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Burn Down Master’s House

Clay Cane

Inspired by long-buried true stories of enslaved people who dared to fight back, this powerful novel offers a searing portrayal of resistance. From Clay Cane, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Grift, it’s a must-read for fans of Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, and Percival Everett.

Publication date: January 27
Genre: Historical Fiction

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Last First Kiss

Julian Winters

Sparks fly in this USA Today bestselling second chance rom com when an unlucky-in-love event planner realizes the man-of-honor at the high profile wedding he’s planning is the same man who broke his heart.

Publication date: January 27
Genre: Romance

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On Sundays She Picked Flowers

Yah Yah Scholfield

In this sinister and surreal Southern Gothic debut, a woman escapes into the uncanny woods of southern Georgia and must contend with ghosts, haints, and most dangerous of all, the truth about herself.

Publication date: January 27
Genre: Horror

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The Seven Daughters of Dupree

Nikesha Elise Williams

From the two-time Emmy Award–winning producer and host of the Black and Published podcast comes a sweeping multi-generational epic following seven generations of Dupree women as they navigate love, loss, and the unyielding ties of family in the tradition of Homegoing and The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois

Publication date: January 27
Genre: Literary Fiction

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With Love from Harlem

ReShonda Tate

From The Queen of Sugar Hill author ReShonda Tate—a new novel inspired by beloved Harlem jazz performer Hazel Scott and the equal parts exhilarating and tumultuous relationship that changed the course of her life.

Publication date: January 27
Genre: Historical Fiction

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The Exes

Leodora Darlington

Who hasn’t wanted to murder an ex—figuratively, at least? In this explosive debut thriller, a woman’s seemingly perfect romantic life is on the verge of collapse as she uncovers a hidden history surfacing dark secrets that have deadly consequences.

Publication date: February 3
Genre: Mystery/Thriller

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Keeper of Lost Children

Sadeqa Johnson

In this new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The House of Eve, one American woman’s vision in post WWII Germany will tie together three people in an unexpected way., labor activism, environmental degradation, and cross-border migration.

Publication date: February 3
Genre: Historical Fiction

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The Shape of Dreams

April Reynolds

A trio of women bond in friendship as a neighborhood tries to seek justice from a system that has forgotten them.

Publication date: February 3
Genre: Literary Fiction

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Where the Wildflowers Grow

Terah Shelton Harris

From acclaimed author Terah Shelton Harris comes a poignant story of survival and redemption that questions what it means to stop existing and start living.

Publication date: February 17
Genre:

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Cleopatra

Saara El-Arifi

Cleopatra tells her own story in this evocative and sensuous historical epic from the bestselling and award-winning author of Faebound and The Final Strife.

Publication date: February 24
Genre: Historical Fiction

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Kin

Tayari Jones

A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage—Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy.

Publication date: February 24
Genre: Literary Fiction

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The Quarter Queen

Kayla Hardy

A Voodoo witch must navigate a magically and racially divided nineteenth-century New Orleans to save her mother—and the soul of the city itself—in this lush debut novel inspired by the life of Marie Laveau.

Publication date: March 31
Genre: Literary Fiction

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The Witch

Marie NDiaye

In a small French town, a mediocre witch trapped in a cruel marriage cries watery tears of blood as she passes on her gifts to her twin daughters, who soon must make a choice: stay close to the nest and the mother who nourished them, or soar away from the dead-end claustrophobia their selfish father has imposed?

Publication date: April 7
Genre: Literary Fiction

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Love by the Book

Jessica George

Friendship is the love story you can count on. When Simone and Remy bump into each other (literally) in a bookstore, it isn’t exactly soulmates at first sight. Simone is guarded and prickly, Remy is insecure and heartbroken, and each woman is harboring a secret. And yet they might just be the missing piece the other has been searching for―if only they can let each other in. I

Publication date: April 7
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

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Year of the Mer

L. D. Lewis

A dark, bloody epic fantasy reimagining of The Little Mermaid that goes far beyond the fairy tale to explore family legacy, war, and what we will sacrifice for vengeance—the perfect read for fans of The Priory of the Orange Tree and Circe.

Publication date: April 7
Genre: Fantasy

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Leave Your Mess at Home

Tolani Akinola

“A warm, smart, hilarious, delicious, riveting” (Curtis Sittenfeld) debut about the uncomfortable, unbreakable ties of family as four adult siblings come home to confront the state of their own lives and each other.

Publication date: April 14
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

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Big Girl Blitz

Danielle Allen

Jazmyn Payne fled her hometown—and the fatphobes who made her life hell– the minute she graduated high school. But dating is the last thing Jazz had on her mind. Until Lamar Anderson sits next to her at the local sports bar. 

Publication date: April 19
Genre: Romance

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Honey

Imani Thompson

A dark, provocative, adrenaline-rush of a novel about a graduate student who murders bad men and justifies it in the name of feminism, by a bold new voice in fiction.

Publication date: May 5
Genre: Literary Fiction

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Score

Kennedy Ryan

A scorching second-chance romance between a talented screenwriter and a phenomenal musician from the New York Times bestselling author of Before I Let Go.

Publication date: May 19
Genre: Romance

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The Missed Connection

Tia Williams

New York Times bestselling author Tia Williams returns with an intensely romantic, deliciously sexy tale about a woman searching for her handsome seatmate on a European flight—and the unexpected places her hunt for love leads her.

Publication date: June 16
Genre: Romance

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A Pair of Aces

Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray

A gripping novel about two trailblazing women on opposite sides of the law—a prosecutor and a madam—who team up to bring down notorious Mob boss Lucky Luciano in 1930s New York, from the New York Times bestselling authors of the million-copy bestseller The Personal Librarian.

Publication date: June 23
Genre: Historical Fiction

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Cool Machine

Colson Whitehead

From #1 New York Times bestselling author and two-time Pulitzer winner Colson Whitehead, an exuberantly entertaining novel that brings to life 1980s New York in the magnificent final volume of his Harlem Trilogy.

Publication date: July 21
Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction

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Take What You Can

Naima Coster

From the New York Times bestselling author of What’s Mine and Yours, a rich, panoramic exploration of female friendship, class, new motherhood, and independence.

Publication date: August 4
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

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Queenie Is Working on It

Candice Carty-Williams

Candice Carty-Williams, internationally bestselling author of Queenie (now a television series on Hulu), reunites us with the iconic character nearly ten years on, facing new chaotic choices in life and love with cherished old friends and family in this highly anticipated sequel

Publication date: September 8
Genre: Literary Fiction

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Nonfiction

A Black Queer History of the United States 

C. Riley Snorton & Darius Bost

Gender and sexual expression have always been part of the Black freedom struggle. The first-ever Black history to center queer voices, this landmark study traces the lives of LGBTQ+ Black Americans from slavery to present day.

Publication date: January 20
Genre: History

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Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America

Howard Bryant

A path-breaking work of biography of two American giants, Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson, whose lives would forever be altered by the Cold War, and would explosively intersect before its most notorious weapon, the House Un-American Activities Committee — from one of the best sports and culture writers working today.

Publication date: January 20
Genre: Biography, Sports

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Scale Boy: An African Childhood

Patrice Nganang

An extraordinary chronicle of youth that evokes the paradoxes of modern Africa―complex, contradictory, and full of conflict, tragedy, and joy.

Publication date: January 20
Genre: Memoir

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When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy

Beronda L. Montgomery

This stunning cultural and personal reclamation of Black history and Black botanical mastery offers up lessons from the natural world shared through the stories of long-lived trees.

Publication date: January 20
Genre: Nature, Science

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Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal History of America

Namwali Serpell

Pulitzer Prize–winning former Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson tells our nation’s torturous racial history through his own family’s story, starting with his great-grandfather’s freedom from slavery and threading his way to his own narrative and reaching today’s Black Lives Matter movement, asking whether this time will be different.

Publication date: February 3
Genre: Biography & Memoir

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The Mixed Marriage Project: A Memoir of Love, Race, and Family

Dorothy Roberts

From Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body and a writer who “has brilliantly illuminated the Black experience in America for decades” (Bryan Stevenson), comes a spirited and riveting memoir of growing up in an interracial family in 1960s Chicago and a daughter’s journey to understand her parents’ marriage—and her own identity.

Publication date: February 10
Genre: Memoir

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The Flower Bearers

Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Rachel Eliza Griffiths that chronicles her experiences with love, loss, and resilience, chronicling the death of her best friend, Kamilah Aisha Moon, and the near-fatal attack on her husband, Salman Rushdie. Griffiths inscribes the trajectories of two transformational relationships with grace and honesty, chronicling the beauty and pain that comes with opening oneself fully to love.

Publication date: January 20
Genre: Memoir

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Nonviolent: A Memoir of Resistance, Agitation, and Love

Rev. James Lawson Jr. & Emily Yellin

The posthumous memoir of Rev. James Lawson Jr., peer of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mentor to Congressman John Lewis and the Freedom Riders, and a principal architect of a nonviolent resistance movement that changed the world.

Publication date: February 17
Genre: Memoir

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On Morrison

Namwali Serpell

An illuminating, electrifying exploration of the work of Toni Morrison by an award-winning novelist and Harvard professor—“a revelatory encounter with the Nobel laureate’s oeuvre.”

Publication date: February 17
Genre: Biography, Literature

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Black. Single. Mother.: Real Life Tales of Longing and Belonging

Jamilah Lemieux

A personal meditation on, examination of, and tribute to Black single motherhood, unapologetically told through poignant essays and candid interviews by a celebrated cultural critic.

Publication date: March 10
Genre: Memoir

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Shut Up and Read: A Memoir from Harriett’s Bookshop

Jeannine A. Cook

The author of It’s Me They Follow chronicles the improbable true story of how she left an abusive past to build a bookshop that survived the Covid pandemic and become an international sensation.cs, three never-before-published speeches, and an introductory essay.

Publication date: March 10
Genre: Memoir

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Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age

Ibram X. Kendi

The National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning charts how “great replacement theory” has become a dominant political idea of our time and ushered in an antidemocratic age.

Publication date: March 17
Genre: Politics

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Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy from Vaudeville to ’90s Sitcoms

Ibram X. Kendi

The award-winning co-anchor of PBS NewsHour presents a sweeping and insightful retrospective on the history of Black comedy in America. Bennett chronicles the transformative history of Black comedy in America, drawing on research and interviews with the actors and executives behind some of the most impactful shows. 

Publication date: March 24
Genre: History, Television & Film

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Phases: A Memoir

Brandy

The iconic, multiplatinum, Grammy Award®–winning performer Brandy brings us a raw, intimate portrait of her life, charting her growth to stardom from Mississippi churches to Hollywood spotlights.

Publication date: March 31
Genre: Memoir

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On Witness and Respair: Essays

Jesmyn Ward

The collected creative nonfiction of a singular American writer, Jesmyn Ward, including widely shared classics, three never-before-published speeches, and an introductory essay.

Publication date: May 19
Genre: Essays, Politics, History

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The Overseer Class: A Manifesto

Steven W. Thrasher

The author of the critically acclaimed The Viral Underclass is back with The Overseer Class, which explores what happens when members of historically minoritized groups are selected for high-visibility positions of power within existing institutions—but under the conditions of a kind of Faustian bargain.

Publication date: May 19
Genre: Politics, Psychology

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The Double Dutch Fuss

Phill Branch

In this raw and lyrical memoir as rich and insightful as How to Say Babylon and as vulnerable and provocative as Heavy, an Emmy Award-winning director chronicles his struggle to break free from—and live outside of—the prescribed paradigms of Blackness and masculinity that shaped him.

Publication date: June 2
Genre: Memoir

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The Price of Exclusion: The Pursuit of Healthcare in a Segregated Nation

Nicole Carr

From award-winning journalist Nicole Carr comes a landmark narrative revealing the untold history of Black medical professionals who have long fought to heal their communities—while confronting a system built to exclude them.

Publication date: June 16
Genre: History, Medicine & Health

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